The Legal Cheek View
In 2015, Gateley became the first full-service UK law firm to list on the stock market, transitioning into a legal and professional services group. While some of its listed counterparts have faced mixed fortunes, Gateley appears to be going from strength to strength.
Gateley Legal, the legal services branch of Gateley, has demonstrated a strong appetite for expansion through acquisitions and recruitment. Most recently, in 2023, it acquired the surveying firm Richard Julian, along with several other legal and professional service firms, such as Paul Tweed, as part of its efforts to diversify its offerings.
Diversity looks to have paid dividends, with annual revenue up 5.7% this financial year to £172 million. The firm’s employees have benefited from this profitability, receiving a sizeable £4.5 million in bonuses at the end of the last tax year.
Gateley has continued to expand by acquiring three law firms and eleven tax, property, and consultancy businesses, primarily focusing on the UK market, with the exception of one outpost in Dubai. However, there has been some consolidation, with the firm citing “challenging” market conditions as the reason for shuttering its Leicester office, aiming to stay resilient amid “macroeconomic uncertainty”.
Consequently, there is no option for international secondments. But don’t despair just yet nomadic trainees because client secondments are a possibility – one happy footie fan was dispatched to Manchester City FC for six months.
Gateley covers a broad range of legal areas, including corporate, commercial, media, sports, disputes and arbitration, property, employment and tax. So, what’s life like as a junior at this ambitious company? And what kind of training can you expect?
“Excellent,” enthuses one rookie. “The training has been of a high level and very varied across the seats. I’ve had good drafting experience, supervision and client contact.” Another junior reports of “high levels of responsibility with a strong support system, I had the opportunity to run some of my own files as a trainee which has given me a huge head-start as a NQ.” Training is split into seat specific, firmwide, and general compulsory training, with additional optional training sessions available through the learning and development officers, which can help prepare rookies when changing seats.
We’re told the work is “challenging and stimulating” and there is always support on offer from colleagues: “I have been given a varied depth and breadth of work and supervisors consciously adapt my workload to suit my level of experience and interests,” glows one insider. Trainees report feeling like they’re “an important part of transactions” and can work “regularly” with colleagues across other teams and offices. Some tasks are “inevitably more admin-focused” but “there is always enough stimulating work within each seat to ensure that trainees are fulfilled”.
Client contact is “fairly common” with notable names such as JD Sports, HSBC and Commonwealth Games England making up the clientele list in London (talk about diverse!). Big deals are also found in the regions, with the employment teams in Birmingham and Nottingham helping save hundreds of jobs in a restructuring deal involving restaurant chain Byron.
The calibre of work does vary depending on the department and “in contentious seats does depend on where cases have progressed to”, but “the team will go out of their way to try and expose you to as many different types of work as they can to ensure the seat is a well-rounded experience,” an insider notes. “They want you to enjoy the time with them and get the most out of the seat.”
One area the company really does excel in is its supportive peers and approachable superiors — in the 2024-25 Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey, Gateley employees couldn’t speak highly enough of their “fantastic peers”, “brilliant support system” and the firm’s “good culture” – which was “probably helped by the trip to the Lake District at the beginning of everyone’s TC” (We bet!). First years receive a “buddy” second-year trainee to help with the bedding in process and the highly acclaimed emerging talent team schedules coaching sessions for each trainee which are tailor-made depending on your personality type! One spy reports, “I feel encouraged to make the training contract my own, and to speak to as many colleagues as possible across the Gateley group (not just the legal side of the business!). NQs show a keen interest in helping us explore potential qualification routes and have helped connect me to their peers ahead of seat rotations or for general training contract/career advice.”
Trainees run the social and charity committees in some offices, creating a “good culture both through official firm events and on more casual occasions”. Besides paddle-boarding and kayaking in the Lake District, rookies might find themselves attending painting classes, yoga events and joining various sports teams: “People are genuinely friends and see each other outside of work” says one content trainee. We’re told the Birmingham office has the best social life!
Superiors are also described as “very approachable” and the “vast majority always have time to help or answer a query”. Rookies report that the “open-plan office and hot-desking system lessens the impression of any hierarchy and teams mostly work collaboratively between all levels”. In fact, more often than not, trainees are said to work directly with partners on deals and the consensus is that “there is a strong desire to build future talent”.
Another area where Gateley outshines its peers is its work-life balance. Comments include “excellent, perfectly balanced” — not something usually uttered by lawyers. One junior lawyer says, “Staying late or working weekends has been incredibly rare. On the occasions it has been required, everyone has been as flexible as possible around existing plans and expressed their gratitude. It really is very rare though (for myself, I only had to once at the end of a deal in corporate and once when volunteering to help on an arbitration matter).” Our insiders were also keen to highlight that “as a trainee you don’t have a work phone and aren’t expected to log on out of hours unless previously agreed”.
Cutting edge tech isn’t the firm’s strong suit but Gateley top brass have stressed that AI is at the top of its agenda moving forward and our insiders seem fairly content with their shiny new case management system for now.
Juniors can request a basic work-from-home (WFH) setup that includes a screen, mouse, and keyboard. However, since the firm now expects all trainees, as well as those with up to two years of post-qualification experience (PQE), to be in the office at least four days a week, this perk is rarely used.
One perk that is utilised is Gateley’s “sharesave” scheme, available as it’s a PLC. Around 70% of staff are now thought to have some form of equity stake, providing extra incentive to work hard. A holiday buy-back scheme, YuLife (a points-based app used to obtain vouchers), monthly boardroom lunches, medical insurance, subsidised gym memberships, access to certain running events, and a new hybrid car scheme make-up the rest of the firm’s added benefits.
There were one or two gripes among the survey respondents, mainly with some office spaces which are “quite dated” and “leave a little more to be desired”. That being said, the Birmingham office’s refurb has gone down well with rookies, and we’re told that in the capital, “nowhere in London beats the terrace for views of St Paul’s”.